Gus

Portland’s greatest filmmaker and his controversial new movie.

The elk statue on
Southwest Main Street would still be there, but would you see it the
same way if Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix hadn’t huddled at its base in
My Own Private Idaho? Would the “Nob Hill Pharmacy” sign from Drugstore Cowboy
still hang on what’s now a sports bar? Would Old Town’s convenience
stores and seedy hotels retain the same gritty charm were it not for the
romance of Mala Noche?

Even if you’re too
young to remember the Old Portland depicted in these films, certain
landmarks take on Van Sant’s tint—either because they always had it, or
because we now see them through his lens. And this city wouldn’t be the
same place were it not for Van Sant, arguably the most important
Portland auteur of our lifetimes, and a force that has inspired a
generation of creators.

Van Sant’s success,
of course, extends beyond the shores of the Willamette. He’s one of a
handful of directors who successfully balances edgy and experimental
films with hits like Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester. Van Sant’s newest film, Promised Land, is his biggest commercial release since 2008’s Milk.
Like that film, it takes on issues of political and social
importance—in this case, the contentious practice of hydraulic
fracturing. But, as with Milk and much of Van Sant’s oeuvre, Promised Land is most keenly interested in the human textures of characters and their relationships with one another.

For this issue, we got the famously reserved Van Sant to talk movies with his friend and peer Todd Haynes, director of Far From Heaven and I’m Not There. They discussed the genesis of Promised Land, Van Sant’s rebellion against his generation’s MTV-influenced aesthetic, Old Portland, new Portland and Portlandia. We also asked Van Sant’s friends, admirers and critics to put his work in perspective.

Finally, I reviewed his new movie, Promised Land,
starring Matt Damon and John Krasinski. It’s set not on the gray
streets of Portland but in the Appalachian foothills of Pennsylvania. If
you ever end up in that country, see if you don’t look at it through
Van Sant’s lens. —Rebecca Jacobson

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